Dead Pinot Grigio and Faugeres bears
Aimlessly trawling the web-o-sphere I came across the Tesco site. OVER 40 Pinot Grigios on their web pages including a low alcohol version, one made by Black Tower as well as a Merlot Pinot Grigio blend and something called Pinot Grigio Grigio Rose (so good they named it twice). How reassuringly… crap. I had not thought that death had undone so many. If how they reach a total of 1,000 is by populating the shelves with zombie wines, then I think they should change their slogan to “Every little… HELP!!”
Back in the land of the living I have tasted (and drunk) some stunning wines this week. On Monday we tried our first Panevino wine at the Engineer. This was the Tankadeddu, a blend of young vines Cannonau with some Monica and Carignano. The wine was properly cloudy and smelled deliciously grapey. The taste was so natural, it was warm yet delicate, fresh yet exotic, an “ooze” of berry flavours. By the end of the bottle there was so much residue it was like red grape sludge but in the nicest sense. A healthy, life-affirming wine.
The next day we went to Dehesa where David had organised a sherry masterclass and lunch in conjunction with Simon (the owner), the redoubtable Becky (sommelier, wine buyer) and Ben, the extremely talented chef. We were effectively launching the Hidalgo wines. It was enlightening and actually exciting tasting these amazing sherries and matching them with the flavoursome food. Fiona Beckett has written a perceptive review which more or less says everything. Star of a multi-talented show was the Amontillado El Tresillo 1874 so named because it comes from an 1874 solera blended and refreshed with younger amontillados. The wine undergoes a very long oxidative development in the family bodega in American oak barrels after a period of ageing under flor.
David writes: “This extremely old amontillado – average age of well over 30 years – is viscous but clean and fresh. Imagine notes of cooked walnuts, of orange peel, dried figs, toffee, cream, warm wood and spices (cinnamon, all spice, nutmeg and clove amongst others). Totally dry, super-complex with and extraordinarily long finish.”
Wednesday was dinner at Terroirs with Peter Prescott who has opened the Boundary in Shoreditch and Lutyens in Fleet Street with Terence Conran. We ate downstairs and enjoyed meaty fare: terrine, rillettes and some artery-hardening middle white pork, with a jumbo scallop interlude, followed by bavette steak and cassoulet and then finishing with cheese. I’m donating my liver to terrine. We drank a couple of glasses of Macon-Chaintre vieilles vignes from Domaine Valette which was rich yet still poised and pure and then a quite brilliant bottle of Mercurey from Catherine and Dominique Derain, ethereal as only great Pinot can be, pure, fine with thrilling acidity. Never has a bottle slid down the gullet so unprotestingly. Earlier, I bumped into Jerry Banister and his wife who were dining at a neighbouring table and he gave me a glass of the Saint-Romain Combe Bazin from Domaine de Chassorney. The wine was vivid, young yet rich with promise, zesty with hints of curd and cream, crunchy yet ultimately enveloping the mouth with pleasure.
Yesterday, I came home late and knocked up a quick vegetable curry. There was nothing to drink other than a bottle of Faugeres, Clos Fantine that had been open for three days. I wasn’t sanguine that it would be in good nick after that period of time, but I popped it in the fridge for ten minutes. Wow, this wine was pulsing with bloody life; it could eat zombies for breakfast. If ever my palate becomes jaded this will be my go-to wine. It’s a wild bear of a drink, but it wants to smother you (and I want to be smothered) with garrigue savagery.